PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.  No. 99-7511

TONY JONES,

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh.

Malcolm J. Howard, District Judge.

(CA-93-69-3)

Argued: September 26, 2000

Decided: January 23, 2001

Before WILKINS and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and

HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by published per curiam opinion. 

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Neal Lawrence Walters, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

SCHOOL OF LAW APPELLATE LITIGATION CLINIC, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Fenita Morris Shepard, Assistant

United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON

BRIEF: Janice McKenzie Cole, United States Attorney, Anne M.

Hayes, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for

Appellee. 
OPINION

PER CURIAM: 

Tony Jones appeals an order of the district court amending his

criminal judgment to alter the method of payment of the fine originally imposed four years earlier. Because we conclude that the district

court was without authority to effect this change, we vacate the

amended order and remand with instructions to reinstate the original

criminal judgment. 

I.

Jones pled guilty to various criminal offenses. As part of his sentence imposed in March 1995, the district court ordered him to pay

a fine of $10,000. The district court ordered the Bureau of Prisons to

establish a payment schedule pursuant to the Inmate Financial

Responsibility Program and directed that upon Jones’ release from

custody the probation office would establish, and could modify, a

payment schedule. 

This court subsequently held that a district court may not delegate

its authority to schedule payment of a fine to either the Bureau of

Prisons or the probation office. See United States v. Miller, 77 F.3d

71, 77-78 (4th Cir. 1996). The warden of the correctional institution

in which Jones is incarcerated sent a letter to the district court concerning this change in the law. In response, the district court "on its

own motion" entered an order on October 13, 1999 amending Jones’

criminal judgment order to provide that the $10,000 fine "shall be due

and payable immediately." J.A. 59 (emphasis omitted). The court did

not identify any authority for its action.

II.

The Government concedes, and we agree, that the district court

lacked authority to amend Jones’ judgment. Although there are circumstances under which a district court may modify or correct a

criminal judgment order, none of them authorized the district court to

take this action based solely on a subsequent change in case law. See

2 UNITED STATES v. JONES
United States v. Hatten, 167 F.3d 884, 886-87 (5th Cir. 1999); United

States v. Lussier, 104 F.3d 32, 34-37 (2d Cir. 1997). 

Despite acknowledging that the district court was without authority

to amend Jones’ judgment to make the full fine payable and due

immediately, the Government nonetheless asserts that we should

affirm the district court because Jones cannot show that he was

harmed by the amendment. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(a). It argues that

there is no appreciable difference between the original sentence and

the amended sentence because, as a practical matter, judgment orders

requiring immediate, full payment of fines are not literally enforced.

See McGhee v. Clark, 166 F.3d 884, 886 (7th Cir. 1999) (noting that

directives to pay full fine immediately are generally interpreted to

require merely "payment to the extent that the defendant can make it

in good faith, beginning immediately" (internal quotation marks omitted)). We need not address whether the amendment affected Jones’

substantial rights, however, because harmless error analysis is not

appropriate when the district court lacked authority for its action. See

Gomez v. United States, 490 U.S. 858, 876 (1989). 

III.

In sum, we conclude that the district court lacked authority to

amend Jones’ criminal judgment to require immediate, full payment

of the fine originally imposed four years earlier, even though the court

was attempting to bring Jones’ sentence into compliance with subsequent case law.1

 We therefore vacate the order of the district court

amending Jones’ sentence and remand with instructions to reinstate

the original sentence.2

VACATED AND REMANDED

1

In light of this disposition, we do not address Jones’ argument that the

district court should have held a hearing and made certain factual findings before imposing the amended sentence. 

2The Government urges us to address the validity of the original judgment order in light of the subsequent decision in Miller. We decline to

do so as any discussion of that issue here would be advisory. 

UNITED STATES v. JONES 3